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Eric Carle Books and Plush Animals Bring Spring to Kohl’s Cares for Kids Program

Local Sales of Exclusive Merchandise to Benefit Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis., – Beginning January 20, Kohl’s Department Stores will offer custom editions of books by renowned children’s author and illustrator Eric Carle, and matching plush animal toys. As part of its Kohl’s Cares for Kids® program, 100 percent of the net profits from sales of the merchandise will benefit children’s health and educational opportunities in Kohl’s communities nationwide.

Eric Carle titles include: Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?, The Lamb and the Butterfly, The Secret Birthday Message, and From Head to Toe. A matching plush kangaroo with joey: sheep and lamb; golden retriever and puppy; and gorilla and baby will be offered with the books. The items will sell for $5 each in stores and online at www.kohls.com.

Locally, Kohl’s is partnering with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in supporting its Safely Home: Child Passenger Fitting Station. The program serves the community by having a specially trained technician at the hospital to inspect and install car seats, and to educate families about car safety for infants, young children, and children with special needs. These services are free of charge and are delivered in both English and Spanish. The goal of Safely Home is to ensure that every family leaves with a safe means of transporting their child and a complete understanding of how to install their seat correctly in the future. Over the past year, Kohl’s had given more than $39,000 to support Packard Children’s Hospital programs such as Safely Home.

“We are so proud to offer these playful plush parent-and-baby animal pairs to our customers along with a wonderful selection of vibrant books by author and illustrator Eric Carle,” said Julie Gardner, senior vice president of marketing for Kohl’s. “By sharing these fun books with their children, shoppers will help raise millions of dollars to benefit children nationwide.”

Featuring brilliant illustrations in Carle’s trademarked artistic style, these books share classic messages about family and friends while also encouraging the development of cognitive and physical skills like word recognition, shape recognition and simple body movements.

  • Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too? Reinforcing the mother-child relationship, this book highlights the fact that all different kinds of animals have mothers. In addition, this reassuring story incorporates colorful illustrations of mom and baby animal pairs including a kangaroo and joey.

  • The Lamb and the Butterfly, This Blue Ribbon award-winning book, authored by Arnold Sundgaard and illustrated by Eric Carle, promotes tolerance and diversity by telling the story of an unlikely friendship between a lamb and a fluttering butterfly.

  • In The Secret Birthday Message, a coded message of playful geometric shapes leads a little boy to a birthday surprise at the end of the book. Die-cut pages offer an interactive opportunity to explore descriptive words including up, below and through.

  • From Head to Toe gets kids clapping, stomping, kicking and wiggling to imitate their favorite animals. The book’s recurring theme “I can do it!” helps children build self-confidence, while simple activities introduce concepts such as following directions, listening, and recognition of basic body parts.

Children will enjoy learning through play with these hardcover books that encourage physical and cognitive development. Coordinating plush parent-and-baby animal pairs provide quality companions to each of these exciting books.

In addition to supporting children’s health and educational opportunities, the Kohl’s Cares for Kids program features a gift card fundraising opportunity for local schools and non-profit youth groups, the Kohl’s Kids Who Care® program, which recognizes kids who contribute through volunteerism to their local communities, and the associate volunteer program, which encourages volunteerism to benefit local youth-focused nonprofit organizations. For more information on these programs, visit www.kohlscorporation.com.

About Kohl’s Department Stores

Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Kohl’s is a family-focused, value-oriented specialty department store offering moderately priced national and exclusive brand apparel, shoes, accessories, home and beauty products in an exciting shopping environment. Kohl’s operates 732 stores in 41 states. For a list of store locations and information, or for the added convenience of shopping online, visit Kohl’s Web site at www.kohls.com.

About Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Ranked as one of the nation’s top 10 pediatric hospitals by U.S.News & World Report, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford is a 264-bed hospital devoted to the care of children and expectant mothers. Providing pediatric and obstetric medical and surgical services and associated with the Stanford School of Medicine, Packard Children’s Hospital offers patients locally, regionally and nationally the full range of health-care programs and services from preventive and routine care to the diagnosis and treatment of serious illness and injury. For more information, visit www.lpch.org.